North Bridge Venture Partners and the Future of Cloud Computing

Last month, North Bridge Venture Partners and GigaOm Research released their third annual Future of Cloud Computing study, exploring how business leaders are adapting the cloud into their organizations and the changes they expect to see in the coming years.   With more data than ever before, North Bridge needed to tell a new story that would help them demonstrate their expertise around cloud computing and the unique value brought by their fund.

We worked with them to identify the stories behind the data, and shape it into a point of view that would demonstrate their firm’s expertise.  By building a predictive model, we were able to uncover that the real drivers of cloud computing were different than the stated drivers, and that business users, rather than IT organizations, were the ones most likely to move their apps into the cloud.  And by diving deeper into trends, we were able to show the way attitudes towards cloud computing have evolved in only a few short years.  Identifying these insights required more than just data analysis, it required domain knowledge about the technology industry, an understanding of the current zeitgeist, and candid partnership throughout the project.

As a result of the study, North Bridge cemented their position as the leading venture capitalists in the cloud computing industry.  The Wall Street Journal conducted an interview Michael Skok, a partner at North Bridge, who also spoke on a panel at the annual Structure conference, and Forbes and GigaOm both covered the survey online.  Armed with a compelling, fact-based story that disrupted conventional wisdom, North Bridge showed that they aren’t jumping on the cloud bandwagon, they know what they’re talking about.